05/04/2023
To my long-term patients, (as well as new patients that look forward to meeting!), I hope you can join me at Access Family Medicine! This is a direct primary care clinic with a monthly membership fee. We do not bill through or deal with insurance. HOWEVER, we highly encourage you to HAVE insurance, which includes Medicare or Medicaid, as well as private insurance.
PLEASE STOP if you think this isn't for you. Please look more closely at the details, as I did before committing to this. Despite the monthly membership fee, you get a lot of value for that money, and usually get some savings on your total healthcare expenses. It is not “concierge medicine”, which is typically marketed to people who are a bit more wealthy, and who want a doctor to contact directly regarding their healthcare issues.
With DIRECT PRIMARY CARE, you actually get that direct contact with your provider (in this case, me), but at a lower cost. This includes office visits, texting, and emailing your provider, for your convenience.
There are savings through our wholesale-price pharmacy, significantly discounted lab tests, and special rates on CT scans, MRIs, ultrasounds, and X-rays.
We also have agreements for special rates with specialists and surgery centers. They are willing to offer reduced rates because, whatever service they provide for our patients, they ALSO don't need to hassle with insurance.
You can be seen as many times as you need to, with unlimited appointments and no copays. If you have a busy schedule and can't get away from work, we can deal with certain problems by phone, text, or video visit, for your convenience. With direct primary care, we don't need to do those little tricks that are required with insurance and which inconvenience you, just to eek out a few extra dollars from them. Our only objective is to provide you with quality care, with savings wherever we can provide them.
You can still use your insurance to cover whatever extra services are needed, such as mammograms, colonoscopy, immunizations, and other health maintenance testing.
There is no long-term commitment or contract, just a monthly membership, so you can try it and see if you find it suitable for your needs.
If you have high deductible insurance, this type of medical practice would be especially beneficial to you. We can usually help you to avoid NEEDING to meet your deductible. If you USE your insurance, your rates go up in the future. It is the same with something like car insurance—if you use it, your rates go up.
Some small businesses will join us to pay the monthly fees for their so they can provide cost-effective benefits for their employees and their families.
That said,there are some patients with circumstances that I feel would NOT benefit as much from our services as others might. If you require some of the more expensive brand-name medications (those that require frequent prior authorizations), we may not be right for you. Since we don't deal with insurance, we cannot complete the prior authorizations, which require specific documentation and diagnosis codes that we are not designed to provide. However, if these you can see a specialist for those specific medications, they would be able to prescribe these and complete the prior authorizations. Currently, there are several specialties locally that are in high demand, who are not taking new patients. At this time, this includes endocrinologists, psychiatrists, and a few other specialties.
If you need more information regarding whether DPC is right for you, please contact our office at (402) 858-1510.
Teresa Novak, PA-C
